A person holds up a sign for justice for Tamir Rice during a news conference Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, in Cleveland. Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir, a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer, said she wants the police officer convicted for killing her son, who was carrying a pellet gun that police say looked real. Tamir Rice was confronted Nov. 22 when officers responded to a 911 call about someone with a gun near a playground. Surveillance video shows him being shot within 2 seconds of a patrol car stopping nearby. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

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NEW YORK (AP) — The mother of a 12-year-old boy shot to death by police on a Cleveland playground says her son was never given a chance to follow officers’ orders.

Samaria Rice also told The Associated Press that police put Tamir Rice’s 14-year-old sister in handcuffs as she rushed to help her dying brother.

But the teary-eyed mother said Monday she believes the family “will have justice.”

The officers were responding to a call about someone possibly carrying a gun. Police say they told the boy to raise his hands and he didn’t.

Rice’s attorney, Benjamin Crump, says the officers could have defused the situation. He says they could have talked to the boy from a distance instead of pulling up next to him and firing within 1.7 seconds.

The boy was carrying an airsoft gun, which shoots plastic pellets.

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